Organizations, such as those that produce, buy, sell, and/or lease products, may desire to forecast information concerning a product. For example, an organization that manufactures one or more products may desire to accurately forecast the demand for the product, the organization's production schedule for the product, and/or a supplier's delivery schedule for subcomponents of the product. Some organizations may use mathematical analyses to develop forecast information based on historical data.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,213,007 (the '007 patent) to Grichnik is directed to forecasting characteristics of a product using a genetic algorithm. In particular, the '007 patent discloses implementing a genetic algorithm to produce equations that model forecast information for a product. The genetic algorithm may determine data values for the equations so as to minimize a statistical error between historical data and data calculated by the equations. The '007 patent may generate accurate forecasts based on some historical data. However, if the historical data includes interrupted series, e.g., if the historical data includes time periods where a particular percentage of the data values are zero or near-zero, the forecasts generated by the system of the '007 patent may be less accurate.
The disclosed methods and systems are directed to solving one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.